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Arboga suspect may be mentally ill

The German woman suspected of killing two toddlers in Arboga in March may suffer from a serious psychiatric disorder.

Published: 27 May 2008 15:59 CEST
Arboga suspect may be mentally ill

A basic mental examination, a so-called paragraph-7 examination, performed on the woman shows that she may have suffered from a serious disorder when the murders took place and when she was examined, writes the Västmanlands Läns Tidning (VLT) newspaper.

The question of whether the woman ought to undergo a more comprehensive forensic psychiatric examination cannot be decided until after a possible trial has taken place.

On the other hand, if the woman were to confess to the murders, she could undergo the more thorough examination before a trial began.

The paragraph-7 examination revealed that the woman is unemployed and has been supported by her mother.

She grew up under normal circumstances with an in-tact family until her parents divorced when she was around 10 or 11-years-old.

The divorce deeply affected the woman, who felt disappointed in her father at the time.

Her schooling proceeded normally and she spent one year of high school studying in the United States.

According to the woman, she has no criminal record and is careful with alcohol. Nor does she use any drugs.

The murder investigation is not yet complete and therefore an indictment won’t be presented on Friday.

Instead the prosecutor will request on Wednesday to be given at least two additional weeks to complete the investigation.

As a consequence, an additional custody hearing will likely be held on Friday.

“The evidence continues to be good,” said police spokesperson Börje Strömberg to the TT news agency.

He didn’t want to reveal what evidence the police had against the woman.

The confiscated hammer which was thought to be the murder weapon has been fully examined, but Strömberg wouldn’t say whether the children were beaten to death with it.

The children, aged one and three, and their 23-year-old mother were found seriously wounded in the family’s house in Arboga on March 17th.

The children later died from their injuries.

A detention order for the German woman suspected of murder was issued in her absence on March 20th. She gave herself up to German police the following day.

On April 29th she was extradited to Sweden.

The woman had previously had a relationship with the 23-year-old mother’s live-in boyfriend.

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CRIME

How the fine you get in Sweden might be based on your income

There are two main types of fines that you could be given in Sweden: fixed fines which have a set value and fines which vary in value depending on your income. Here’s how they work.

Published: 23 April 2024 14:53 CEST
How the fine you get in Sweden might be based on your income

How do fines work in Sweden?

The two most common types of fine are penningböter (a fixed amount of money) and dagsböter (which vary depending on your income and the severity of the crime committed).

There is a third type of fine, normerade böter, which are rare. These are usually calculated based on some aspect of the crime committed – like the value of an item stolen or damaged, or the horsepower of a motor involved in the crime, for example.

Who can issue these fines?

Fines in Sweden can be issued by four different authorities: the courts, the police, customs and the coast guard. 

Things like parking fines, fines for using public transport and library fines do also exist, but, legally speaking, they’re technically fees – kontrollavgifter or straffavgifter, rather than fines – böter. This is important, as true fines will leave you with a mark on your criminal record, while fees do not (although if you don’t pay them you may be issued with a black mark on your credit record).

Police and customs issue a type of penningböter (fixed fines) which are known as ordningsböter. If you’re given one of these fines and you admit to the crime straight away, then you essentially skip going through the courts and your fine is issued directly by the police instead of being issued by a judge in court. 

Ordningsböter can be issued for things like not being able to present your drivers licence or other ID when you’re driving a car (500 kronor), not having insurance on your moped (500 kronor), or antisocial behaviour in public spaces through, for example, urinating (800 kronor) or playing loud music (1,000 kronor).

As a general rule, fixed fines are issued for less serious crimes. They can vary in size from a minimum of 200 kronor to a maximum of 4,000 kronor per crime, while the maximum amount which can be issued at one time for multiple crimes is 10,000 kronor. These fines vary in size depending on the severity of the crime rather than the income of the person who has committed it.

Income-based fines or dagsböter (literally: “daily fines”) are issued for more serious crimes, like grievous bodily harm, theft, animal abuse, damage to property or taking pictures of classified buildings, so you’re not going to be issued one just for driving slightly over the speed limit.

How are dagsböter calculated?

They’re made up of two numbers. The first is the amount of fines issued, which varies depending on the severity of the crime (between 30 and 150, or 200 if they are being sentenced to fines for multiple crimes at once), and the second is the value of each fine, which depends on the income of the person charged, but must be between 50 and 1,000 kronor.

This means that the lowest possible daily fine is 30 fines of 50 kronor each, or 1,500 kronor, while the highest is 200 fines of 1,000 kronor each, or 200,000 kronor.

As a general rule, one daily fine is meant to be equivalent to one thousandth of the yearly income of the person charged, taking into account other aspects of their personal finances like debts, savings and anyone else they have to support financially. This means that two people committing the same crime can be sentenced to different fines.

Let’s say two people get in a fight and are sentenced to 80 daily fines each. The first one has no income, so their fine value is set at the minimum (50 kronor per daily fine) meaning they pay a total of 4,000 kronor. The other has a high yearly income, so their daily fine is set to 500 kronor, putting their total fine at 40,000 kronor, despite being sentenced for exactly the same crime.

Despite the name, daily fines are not paid by day, but they’re paid as a lump sum within 30 days from the date at which the sentence becomes legally binding. If the perpetrator of a fine refuses to pay, their fine will be passed on to the Enforcement Agency (Kronofogden), who have the power to seize and sell their assets to cover it.

If they refuse to pay the fine despite being financially able to, they can be sentenced to prison for anywhere between two weeks to three months.

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